Mary Jenkins, born in Waterloo,
Maryland and
schooled in a Catholic female seminary, married John Surratt at age
seventeen.
In 1853, the Surratts bought 287 acres of land in Prince George's
County--about
a two-hour horse ride from Washington. Surratt built a tavern and
a post office, and the property became known as Surrattsville.
(During
the Civil War, the tavern apparently served as a safehouse in the
Confederate
underground network.) The couple raised three children, Isaac,
Anna,
and John Jr.

In 1864, two years after John Surratt
died,
Mary Surratt decided to move to house she owned in Washington at 541
High
Street. The tavern in Surrattsville she rented to an ex-policeman
named John Lloyd, who would later provide the key evidence against her
in the conspiracy trial.

Mary
Surratt's
Role in the Conspiracy

Mary Surratt's eldest son, John,
served in
the Civil War as a Confederate secret agent. John Surratt's
acquaintances
included many of the key figures in the assassination conspiracy,
including
John Wilkes Booth, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Lewis
Powell.

Lewis Weichmann, who attended college
with
John Surratt, resided at Mary Surratt's boarding house in Washington
during
the period in which the conspiracy plot was hatched. Weichmann,
although
describing his landlord as "exemplary" in character and "lady-like in
every
particular," provided testimony that incriminated Mary Surratt.
He
described numerous private conversations in the Surratt house between
Mary
and Booth, Powell, and other conspirators. Typically, according
to
Weichmann, Booth would ask Mary--if John were not at home--if she could
"go upstairs and spare a word." He testified that on April 2 Mary
Surratt asked him "to see John Wilkes Booth and say that she wished to
see him on 'private business'"--and that Booth visited with her in her
home
that evening. He told of Booth giving him $10 on the Tuesday
before
the assassination which he was to use to hire a buggy to take Mary
Surratt
to Surrattsville to collect--according to Surratt--a small debt.

On the day of the assassination,
April 14,
Mary Surratt sent Weichmann to hire a buggy for another two-hour ride
to
Surrattsville. Weichmann reported that Surratt took along "a
package,
done up in paper, about six inches in diameter." Surratt and
Weichman
arrived sometime after four at Surratt's tavern. Surratt went
inside
while Weichmann waited outside or spent time in the bar. Surratt
remained inside about two hours. Between six and six-thirty,
shortly
before the began their return trip to Washingon, Weichmann saw Mary
Surratt
speaking privately in the parlor of the tavern with John Wilkes
Booth.
At nine o'clock, Surratt saw Booth for a last time when he visited her
home in Washington. After the visit, according to Weichmann,
Surratt's
demeanor changed--she became "very nervous, agitated and
restless."

Less than seven hours later, as the
President
lay dying and Booth having fled, investigators paid an initial visit to
the Surratt home. When the investigators left, Surratt reportedly
exclaimed to her daughter, "Anna, come what will, I am resigned.
I think J. Wilkes Booth was only an instrument in the hands of the
Almighty
to punish this proud and licentious people." [Weichmann
affidavit,
8/11/1865]

On April 17, shortly after eleven at
night,
a team of military investigators again arrived at the Surratt home to
interview
her and other residents about the assassination. While they were
doing so, Lewis Powell, carrying a pick-axe, knocked on the door.
When he claimed to have been hired by Mary Surratt to dig a gutter,
Surratt
was asked whether she could confirm his story. Surratt answered,
"Before God, sir, I do not know this man, and have never seen him, and
I did not hire him to dig a gutter for me." While in the Surratt
home, investigators uncovered various pieces of incriminating evidence,
including a picture of John Wilkes Booth hidden behind another picture
on a mantelpiece. Facing arrest, Surratt asked a minute to kneel
and pray.

Mary
Surratt
at Trial

According to Thomas Harris, a member
of the
Military Commission that tried Surratt, the most damning evidence
against
her came from Surrattsville tavernkeeper John Lloyd. Lloyd told
the
Commission that five to six weeks before the assassination John
Surratt,
David Herold, and George Atzerodt came to Surrattsville to drop off at
his tavern two carbines,
ammunition, about twenty
feet of rope, and a monkey wrench. The men asked them Lloyd to
conceal
them, with Surratt suggesting a hiding place under joists in a
second-floor
room.

Lloyd testified that three days
before the
assassination, Mary Surratt told him that "the shooting irons" left at
his place by the men weeks ago would be needed soon. Then on the
day of the assassination, Surratt again brought up the subject,
according
to Lloyd's testimony:

On the 14th of April
I went to
Marlboro to attend a trial there; and in the evening, when I got home,
which I should judge was about 5 o'clock, I found Mrs. Surratt there.
She
met me out by the wood-pile as I drove in with some fish and
oysters
in my buggy. She told me to have those shooting-irons ready that night,
there would be some parties
who would call for them. She gave me something wrapped in a piece of
paper,
which I took up stairs, and found to be a field-glass. She told me to
get
two bottles of whisky ready, and that these things were to be called
for
that night.

Just about midnight
on Friday,
Herold came into the house and said, "Lloyd, for God's sake, make haste
and get those things." I did not make any reply, but went straight and
got the carbines, supposing they were the parties Mrs. Surratt had
referred
to, though she didn't mention any names. From the way he spoke he must
have been apprised that I already knew what I was to give him. Mrs.
Surratt
told me to give the carbines, whisky, and field-glass. I did not give
them
the rope and monkey-wrench. Booth didn't come in. I did not know him;
he
was a stranger to me. He remained on his horse. Herold, I think, drank
some out of the glass before he went out.

I do not think they
remained
over five minutes. They only took one of the carbines. Booth said he
could
not take his, because his leg was broken. Just as they were about
leaving,
the man who was with Herold said, "I will tell you some news, if
you want to hear it," or something to that effect. I said, "I am not
particular;
use your own pleasure about telling it." "Well, said he, "I am pretty
certain
that we have assassinated the President and Secretary Seward."

Another prosecution witness, George
Cottingham
told the Commission that after learning of the assassination John Lloyd
had cried, "Oh, Mrs. Surratt, that vile woman, she has ruined me!
I am to be shot! I am to be shot!"

Surratt's attorney, Frederick Aiken,
argued
that Lloyd's evidence should be disbelieved because he was "a man
addicted
to the excessive use of intoxicating liquors" and was motivated to
"exculpate
himself by placing blame" on Mary Surratt.

The Military Commission--relying
heavily on
the testimony of Lloyd-- found Mary Surratt guilty of conspiracy and
sentenced
her to death. Five of the nine Commission members, in the record
transmitted to President Johnson for his review, recommended that the
President--because
of "her sex and age"-- reduce Surratt's punishment to life in
prison.
Johnson refused to change the sentence, describing Surratt as having
"kept
the nest that hatched the egg."

After a last-ditch effort to delay
her prosecution
by way of a writ of habeas corpus failed when President Johnson
declared
the writ suspended for this case, Surratt was hanged on July 7, 1865
along
with three other conspirators. Surratt became the first woman
executed
by the United States.

The execution of Surratt came under
considerable
criticism in some quarters. H. L. Burnett, who served on the
Commission,
defended the sentence: "Whomever indulges in wide-mouthed
proclamations,
or pronounces her conviction 'an inhuman crime,' unsupported by
evidence,
betrays an animus, to say the least, not overcareful of truth."